Axton, I agree with your analysis about the contradiction between short term profit gains and long term research and development, which necessitates several years of investment that may not result in any visible gains.
That's why even Bill Gates, with all the $$ that Microsoft has, has called for the government to spend more money in fundamental research: "While private sector research and development is important, federal research funding is vital. Unfortunately, while other countries and regions, such as China and the European Union, are increasing their public investment in R&D, federal research spending in the United States is not keeping pace. To address this problem, I urge Congress to take action. The Federal Government should increase funding for basic scientific research." You can read the entire transcript of that 2007 senate hearing here: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/exec/billg/speeches/2007/03-07Senate.mspx This is before the economic crisis.... so things are worse now. Guillaume ________________________________ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [[email protected]] on behalf of Axton [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:17 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Kinetic Request at WalMart ** I don't see the future as bright for the Sparc line when I see numbers like these: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh032612-story09.html They are also pushing Hitachi and Fujitsu out of the equation because it is not as profitable (per this article). How long do you think Oracle will keep an unprofitable business line around? From what I've observed, Oracle doesn't seem to have much of an appetite for things that don't make money. Sun did a lot of innovative things with Solaris. I don't see that continuing under Oracle, except to the extent that the innovations aid appliance/database performance. Sadly, when it comes to operating systems, application performance is only a small part of what makes a good operating system. At the end of the day, it is what it is. I don't think any of the paths for Sun were good. I suppose I liked Sun for doing innovative things, even when they weren't profitable. They developed and shaped a lot of what we all use today. Sadly, their contributions are not what Wall Street or investors were looking for. Research and development has a very specialized application in a market economy. In the free market/capitalist paradigm, leaps and bounds in progress are hard to make. A constant churn of small developments with a contained shelf-life, backed by aggressive marketing, are much more in line with the values of that system. Axton Grams The statements in this message are my opinion and don't necessarily reflect the values, opinions, or beliefs of anyone or anything else. _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
